On a persistently foggy day Mark Klim and I ambled up the Tunnel Brook Trail to the chain of beaver ponds in Tunnel Brook Notch (between Mt. Moosilauke and Mt. Clough) and made a short, steep bushwhack to one of the massive slides on Clough.
Reservoir for the Glencliff Home, impounded along Slide Brook.
The Tunnel Brook Trail is mostly a mellow climb through fine hardwood forest.
High canopy.
Our one spot of sun for the day.
Mud Pond, the southernmost and largest of the string of ponds on the floor of the notch. No view of Moosilauke's South Peak today.
Foliage peeks through the fog.
Much of the Tunnel Brook Trail was originally an old road that dated back to the 1790s and was rebuilt in 1903. It was closed for good by huge slides that fell in 1927.
The USFS crew has removed many blowdowns that came down during last October's storm.
Deep woods on the floor of the notch.
Fog shrouded our target slide, but we decided to head up to it anyway.
Crossing an old beaver dam.
After a steep, wet whack, we emerged on the slide.
Looking up the wide, massive slide.
Peering down at a pair of the ponds.
Large areas of ledge remain bare nearly a century after the slide fell.
Looking across.
The triangle of conifers marks an old slide on the Moosilauke side that has been almost completely revegetated.
Nice colors looking to the north.
And to the south.
Crossing back over at another beaver dam, at the northernmost pond.
Pretty scene on a gray day.
Looking back at the slide. Lots of birch gold on the slope.
A rough new relocation around a flooded spot.
The fog has descended again at the southern lobe of Mud Pond.
I ventured out onto the Tunnel Brook Trail today from the Wildwood side and those slides of Clough are so impressive! My husbands great-grandfather was a postman and we have been told that one of his delivery routes ran from Wildwood to Glencliff via Tunnel Brook. We always had our doubts but it sounds like it is a possibility?
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